Page 17 of The Perfect Stranger

Chapter Six

La Balsa lay situated on the border of Colombia and Ecuador. The secluded town surrounded by a mountainous landscape is renowned for its difficult access—in and out. It was going to be quite the journey reaching it without being seen. Our taxi pulled to a stop in front of the makeshift Customs Office positioned on the side of road yards before the bridge. My stomach grew uneasy. It had been what seemed like a lifetime since I was last here. A lifetime of ignoring my heritage for the sake of living in…. civilization. My mother had traveled to La Balsa almost thirty years ago keen to capture the story of a rural coca farmer who was still using the product for purely medicinal purposes in a time when Europe and America had grown addicted to the liquid hit.

Julieta, a reporter, always willing to throw herself in the deep end, told her photographer to stay at home while she traveled along with a local guide who navigated her through the mountains, rivers, and rebel forces to get to the small community. She explained that when she met my father she was left speechless. La Balsa wasn’t in the slightest what she was expecting. What she had expected was a town so rural its inhabitants could still be called tribal. What she got instead was a self-sufficient established town with a local hospital, a school, performing arts center, small businesses and a strong foundation of community living.

And my father?

Was it love at first sight?

My mother never confirmed.

It had certainly been lust at first sight. She described him as having thick dark hair that would be slicked back in an Elvis style, deep caramel skin, and strong jawline. His hands were that of a working man. A man who had always used half of his earnings from the coca crop to build La Balsa from ground up. Her one week expected stay turned into a three-month venture. In that time, she immersed herself into the community, studying the people, their practices, and how they worked the land to keep them self-sufficient. Her face was always behind her camera as she documented anything and everything.

One beautiful clear blue day she captured a natural shot of my father just as he was turning around to take her hand. The sun blasts from behind him, its rays splaying out around his body. The lens snapped just in time to catch the twinkle in his eye in response to my mother’s playfulness. Five months after she returned to the States and I was born. My time was split between New York and La Balsa. My mother and father still shared the mutual bond and respect. Love for each other still shone in their eyes. But their lifestyles were vastly different and therefore couldn’t be shared.

On the way home after the third visit we were traveling upstream when we were confronted with rebel forces scouring the area looking for missing cartel runners. We were all forced off the boat, the local guide pleading in Spanish to release us. AK-47’s were pointed in our faces, and even though I was only thirteen at the time I remember the look in the rebel’s eyes. He would have killed us then and there and not lost any sleep that night.

My mother held me tight, her long nails digging into the soft skin of my upper arm. She was teary but wore a brave face. A heated argument broke out between the guide and the rebels, their gazes landing on my mother throughout the exchange. The guide turned ashen-faced to her and whispered something in her ear. She swallowed hard, eyes dropping to the ground, tears flicking off her eyelashes. She stood squeezing my hand and positioned me behind the guide. Cupping my cheeks she tilted my face and kissed my forehead five times before walking away with two of the three rebels. I watched confused, my heart pounding in my chest, my gut twisting knowing nothing good was coming out of this. I watched as they trudged through the river mud and up into the thick of trees. The rest of us waiting, a rifle pointed for extra assurance. No one said anything. No one dared look at each other. What felt like forever passed. The sounds of the river water lapping against the aluminum of the boat the only noise. And then they reappeared. I saw my mother first. She clutched her cream blouse around her breasts, the top three buttons lying somewhere on the jungle floor. Her loose hair was tousled, and blood mixed with dirt ran down her forearms and knees.

I made to run to her. She looked weak and defeated, and the men behind weren’t helping her as she struggled barefoot through the river bank’s slosh. The guide gripped my forearm with frightening urgency and yanked me back down on the skinny plank of wood masking as a seat. The rebel who had been guarding us now looked humored. His eyes were laughing and I didn’t know why. Not even when my mother told me we would never return to La Balsa did I know. It wasn’t until years later I understood what had happened that day and why the man had been laughing at me.

Eight years after our last visit to La Balsa, my mother died. For eight years, during a time when HIV was rife, my mother suffered from the disease. I suspected she knew. Her weakening condition, bruises, and sores were a giveaway something was wrong. She would dismiss her low days and celebrate her highs. And then one day she didn’t wake up. The men who took turns raping her would never know the almost decade-long struggle she faced. Or perhaps they did. Perhaps that’s why he was laughing at me, knowing that one day I would wake up to find my mother dead from HIV after they infected her.

A place that gave her the greatest love of her life had been the cause of her demise, and now it seemed, I was being called to save it.

“Where’d you go, bro?” Jase stared ahead at the blank wall. We were in the Customs Office waiting for our papers to be processed.

“Just trying to clear my head before things get fucked up.”

As if on cue, the customs officer glanced up from his clipboard and cast a suspicious look over both of us.

“Reason for entering through La Balsa?” The rotund officer with nicotine stained teeth stood in front of us waiting expectantly for a reply.

“I have family in La Balsa.”

His suspicious eyes narrowed further, his gaze studying my appearance.

“Too white.”

“My mother was American.”

He raised his eyebrows in distaste.

My skin was considerably lighter compared to the people of La Balsa who were predominately afro-Colombians.

Seemingly satisfied with my answer, he retreated back to his rickety desk and stamped our passports.

When the officer returned, he held out his hand, and I withdrew the package from my jacket’s internal pocket. His eyes flicked down to the duffels he had surreptitiously inspected. Fact of the matter was, he didn’t give a damn that arms were leaving his country, only if they were coming in. And he certainly wasn’t going to pay any attention to it with the promise of half a year’s salary in his pocket. To us, it was nothing. To them, it was like striking gold.

“Here!” He handed back our documentation and pocketed the cash. “I don’t know how deep in La Balsa you’re traveling, but you should be careful. Word had spread this side of the border that rebel forces have taken a stronghold. But something tells me you already know that.”

“I know enough.”

“I bet you do. What you don’t know is the type of men leading this war.” His face screwed up in distaste. “Savages. People are saying they will do the same here. It’s only a matter of time.”

“They have no reason to.”

“They have every reason. They’re a cartel, amigo.” He flicked the thick wad of notes close to his nose and inhaled deeply. “The smell of money makes the sanest of men go crazy.”

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